Almost Nothing
by halfabagoffritos
Summary: She hears a sudden click that sounds awfully similar to a gun, and swivels in the desk chair, only to find nothing. Always nothing, and yet everything. (Written for the Kiss Kiss To You Too fic exchange!)


**Day 1**

It's over.

They won.

Root sighs and scrubs a hand across her face to wipe away some of the sheer exhaustion that seeps through her. The ultimate victory, achieved, yet so many costs…

Carter, lost. Root didn't know her very well, or really at all, but she'd born witness to how badly her death had shaken the rest of the team.

Fusco, severely injured in their last ditch effort against Samaritan, but recovering. He might never go much faster than a brisk walk anymore, but he still has his life.

And she'll probably never know where Harold went. He's very good at hiding, he was already gone by the time they emerged from Greer's hideout, and She's keeping his current location under wraps.

And Shaw…

She hears a sudden _click_ that sounds awfully similar to a gun, and swivels in the desk chair, only to find nothing. Always nothing, and yet everything.

**Day -947**

"You can sit a little closer than that, you know…"

The glare she received from Shaw in return definitely made simpering worth it.

"I'm just saying-" The cock of Shaw's gun didn't startle her into silence, exactly, but it formed enough of a hint to bring about a change of course. "That angry over an apple? I would've saved you the last bite if you'd asked…"

Shaw rolled her eyes, yet still said nothing as she started cleaning her gun for the surely hundredth time.

A smirk crossed Root's lips. "That's fine, we don't have to _talk_."

Shaw's arms tensed a split second before she slammed her piece onto the desk. "I swear to G_od_, Root-" she growled,

Smirk turned into a wicked grin. "Bet I know what you're thinking," she breathed, leaning toward Shaw. "How very much you'd love to take this…" She held up her trusty taser. "…and press it to my neck. Roughly, of course, because we both know that's the only way we _really_ like it."

Root could tell from the way her eyes darkened, pupils dilated, that she'd crawled at least an inch under Shaw's skin. Maybe even more than an inch, because in the next second, Shaw had bolted for the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

"One day…" she whispered, leaning back in the chair and twiddling the taser between her fingers.

**Day -793**

"Shit, Root!"

Her eyes trained a scant few inches to the right and found Shaw shooting her what would be interpreted by anyone else as a murderous glare. Several months of a sometimes tenuous partnership, however, had done wonders reducing Shaw's steely wolflike aggression to something more akin to an ill-tempered puppy. Sometimes it took all Root's restraint to not pat her on the head and coo after every eyeroll.

Instead, Root just winked and lowered her gun. "Worried about my aim?"

Shaw looked down and nudged the body with her toe before turning to fully face Root. "I had it under control," she muttered.

"Much as I do love watching you manhandle someone, even if it's not me," Root replied as she tucked the gun into her waistband, "we're on a bit of a tight schedule."

A chill shook noticeably through Shaw, one of her gloved hands reaching up to rub some heat back into her other arm. "We done playing in the snow?" she asked. "Where's our next target?"

Root grinned, a vision of Shaw in a bikini and choke-holding bad guys dancing through her head. "Miami."

**Day -782**

A glorious voice whispering through the implant alerted Root to her incoming presence several minutes before she heard the heavy bootsteps crunching snow nearby, so when Shaw flopped down beside her on the Central Park bench, Root was already well-prepared with her usual smirk. She glanced over once she heard the light crunch of a styrofoam container being pried open, the scent of good maple syrup and buttery hotcakes wafting toward her. Her lips curved up a little more toward the genuine smile end of the spectrum as the quip she'd held on the tip of her tongue died off entirely.

"Seems pretty easy to get your location outta the machine," Shaw mumbled around a mouthful of pancake.

Root's smile spread to a grin. "If you want to have breakfast with me, Sameen, you just have to ask."

An eyeroll and continued shoveling of food into her mouth comprised Shaw's only reply to that.

Silence descended, punctuated only by the sounds of Shaw's aggressive eating mannerisms. Root felt a calmness settle into her bones and blood, unusual considering their present general circumstances but she welcomed the serenity nonetheless. An image flashed in her mind of the two of them, some unknown point in the future, huddled against the cold on that same bench and watching children build snowmen and leap from swings. Perhaps one day…

Root lifted her rapidly chilling espresso to her lips just as the container, with one pancake and a sausage remaining, was shoved unceremoniously onto her lap. Her eyebrows shot up as her head swiveled to look at Shaw, whose own eyes remained fixated on something on the horizon.

A moment later, Shaw visibly tensed. "What?" she grumbled. "Coffee isn't food. You need to eat."

Root swallowed about a hundred different replies, laced with varying degrees of flirtation, and reached down to gently grasp the fork.

**Day -455**

Four hours, two showers, and a series of virus-destruction-procedures into their "all-night-decontamination", a half-empty bottle of whiskey slammed down on the table between her and the laptop. Single malt, must be one of Finch's finest, Root snap-evaluated as she jolted back a hair and glanced up to find Shaw hovering nearby with a pair of shotglasses in hand. "I'm…not a big drinker," Root said with an eyebrow raised. "And I never thought I'd have to say these words, but we still have a _mission_."

Shaw shrugged and moved to sit down next to her. "You can just watch, then."

The next half hour contained mostly silence, occasional _slam_s as Shaw knocked back another shot with gusto, and frequent tapping from Root's fingers dancing across the keyboard. Root felt herself nestling into the quiet atmosphere, already reluctant to relinquish its comfort come daylight. She caught herself glancing at Shaw with increasing frequency, taking a mental inventory of her flushed skin and relaxing limbs. A year ago, she might have used the opportunity to fill the air with a dozen quips and innuendo, and Shaw would have told her - using zero words - precisely how she should go unkindly fuck herself. Root smiled at how far they'd all come.

Another smack of glass against wood echoed in the nearly empty room, followed by, "So you're a nerd, right?"

Root blinked and cast a side-eyed look at Shaw. "I…suppose so," she murmured. She had to catch herself to keep from tilting away as Shaw practically collapsed forward onto the table, nearly knocking over the now almost-empty bottle.

"Okay, so, do you get all _weird_ about your tech?" Shaw asked, hands gesticulating in a frenzy. "And people eating around it?"

A beat, then a smile curled at Root's lips. She reached out and gently forced Shaw's hands back down to the table, then gave them a light pat before returning to her work. "I'm sure Harold knows you'd never intentionally get crumbs everywhere," she cooed, "but computers _are_ very delicate instruments."

"Whatever," Shaw grumbled and polished off the last bit of whiskey, "I have delicate coming outta my ass."

Tiny chuckles, and about a million pithy comments on Shaw's ass, clawed their way up Root's throat, and she forced them back down with a swallow. "I'm sure you do, Sameen."

**Day -372**

Their cozy hideaway was quiet, Root noticed as she hopped down the last step. Far less quiet than she had grown used to over the past week. Reese sat on the floor near Bear's bed, knees bent and arms resting over top of them. He refused to meet her eye as she walked past, her brow furrowing with each step.

"Where's Shaw?" she said, not quite casually, as she unzipped her jacket and gave her hair a shake to put some curl back in it.

As if her words drew him out of hiding, Harold stepped out of the subway car, something clenched in his hands. A phone. "Miss Groves, I think…" Harold stopped and averted his eyes to the floor, then held the phone out to her.

She sucked in a breath. She knew, before she even glanced at the screen. The stillness, the lack of empty McDonald's cups that always seemed to appear in random places, the way Bear's eyes tracked her movements as she shakily reached out a hand to accept.

She didn't have to press play, because she knew. But she did anyway.

**Day -169**

She caught glimpses from time to time, brief flashes just at the edge of her vision - Shaw gently scraping her favorite knife against a whetstone, play-wrestling with Bear, slinging back cheap tequila straight from the bottle. Sometimes Root heard the voice, whispers of her name and "please" taunting her from out of reach. Other times, something would ghost across her hand or grab her arm. She never told Harold of these things, because they were still at war, still had a mission.

_The_ mission. And they were winning, somehow. Even she wasn't quite certain _how_, but the machine had grown bolder in reaching out to them via various means. Far be it for her to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

Something shifted nearby, to her right, and Root whipped around, ready to shoot, only to find Reese lifting a placating hand in response. "Good of you to finally join us, John," she sighed, then turned back to task at hand. Namely, uploading a virus that, if Her calculations were correct, would all but cripple much of Samaritan's audio surveillance capability. Of course, anything that damaged Samaritan's feeds would adversely affect their own operations, but She had posed it as their best option at present.

"How much longer?" she distantly heard him ask over the din of her typing.

Root fought to not bite out a scathing remark. Since Shaw…left…she'd been trying her best to not insult Reese quite as much, in the interest of teamwork and all that. "Never the patient one, are yo-" She paused and glanced up, eyes unfocused. "Three, down the hall to the right."

He nodded and slipped out the door to intercept as she resumed her own work, quickly hammering out lines of code she'd practiced over and over back in the subway to ensure the fastest possible delivery while in the field. The pop of nearby gunshots threatened to break her concentration, but She droned in her ear that the intruders had been taken care of, with only one bullet grazing Reese's arm. Root tapped on her other earpiece and murmured, "Get to safety." One more execute statement, a quick press of Enter, and… "We're done here."

She paid little attention to Reese asking if she'd be okay to get back on her own, slamming closed the laptop and shoving it into a messenger bag. An alert of one incoming pinged in her implant, and she shouldered the bag and pulled out her favorite piece, prepared to shoot her way out.

Root was halfway down the hall when it appeared again. Those ghosted images, this time fully in-view. Staring her down, lifting a gun, pulling the trigger. She could even feel the blistering heat of what would be a bullet whizzing past. She paused and closed her eyes. Not now. Not when there might be a Samaritan goon lurking nearby. She needed focus, not the memory of Shaw. With a deep breath, she reopened her eyes and the ghost was gone. Strangely, She also now reported no incoming anymore, but Root just shook it off. There'd be time to re-evaluate later, maybe.

**Day 1**

_"I have to do this. It has to be me. I'm sorry."_

Root leans forward on her elbows and glares down at the phone. "Damn you…" she grits out. They could have kept her safe. They could have won this, even with her largely out of commission.

They could have had a happy ending.

She ignores the whispers and presses Play again with a shaking finger.

_"I have to do this-"_

"It had to be me. I'm sorry."

Every muscle in her body paralyzes at the second, mirrored voice. She can only stare down at the desk, at the phone. She's heard the echo so many times, but never like this. Never these lines.

"Root."

That's more familiar, but she can't bring herself to turn around, not again. Not when she knows the nothing that awaits her. Always nothing. Instead, she swallows with a dry mouth and rasps into the void, "Please stop."

"Turn around."

The voice is now impossibly close, the air shifting past her good ear. She finds herself almost hypnotized, but she still closes her eyes even as her heels kick into a slow rotation of the desk chair.

"That-okay, c'mon, you're kinda ruining this."

All at once, her eyes fly open and her mouth drops and somewhere in the deep recesses of her brain, Root's pretty sure she hears a tinny chuckle.

And none of that matters, because it's her.

Shaw. Beautiful, exasperated Shaw.

Root leans forward and pokes at Shaw's arm once, then again, then a third time before Shaw grabs the offending hand and rolls her eyes.

"How?" is the first word to escape Root's mouth, followed by, "Why?"

Shaw just shrugs, like she does. "I had a mission."

More words, angrier this time, start to bubble forth as Root climbs to her feet to not-quite-tower over Shaw. "From _who_?" she demands, but a split-second later she already knows the answer. And there isn't anyone but Shaw on whom she can focus a steely glare for it.

"Woah, hey!" Shaw says and raises her hands as if to shield herself. "I just did what you'd have done. I trusted Her." She shrugs again. "It worked, didn't it?"

Before Root can actually ask just _what_ worked, She starts feeding information through the implant. Diagrams, blueprints, lines of code, the name of one Daniel Casey, the date and time of death for Martine Rousseau. Root's eyes narrow. "You went _undercover_?" she growls out. "We thought you were _dead_!"

Shaw digs the toe of her boot into the concrete. "Yeah," she mutters, "that was kinda the point." She looks up, and there's a sincerity in her gaze that Root doesn't recall seeing very frequently, if at all. "You couldn't know, none of you could. My cover was already blown and I was always the most expendable one of the bunch anyway."

There's a hundred things Root wants to say to that, to explain just how _not_ expendable Shaw was, and still is. She settles on crossing her arms over her chest and looking at her feet. "Well, it's over. There's no more Team Irrelevant. Not exactly any need for one right now. Everyone else has moved on." She glances up through her lashes just in time to catch the corners of Shaw's lips twitch upward.

"Except you."

Root matches Shaw's earlier shrug. "My life will probably always be tied to Her," she murmurs. "You don't have to stay."

Shaw rocks back and forth just a hair. "True," she says, eyes fixing up on ceiling. "I do still have a few _criminal_ contacts." A heavy beat passes between them, and Shaw trains her gaze back to meet Root's. "I think I'll pass, though."

The _why_ is unspoken. Root's certain that Shaw can see it in the way her eyes start to shimmer over. She wants to do the impulsive thing, the thing she's watched over and over in countless movies. They're a very impulsive pair, after all. But it's the _thing_ they've never done before, not in all the flirtations and loaded glances and threats with various implements of violence. She can't be the one to do it, to take that step forward into what she assumes is now their future. The ghosts still paralyze her even now.

And as suddenly as she had first appeared, Shaw grips the lapels of Root's leather jacket and jerks her down. Then there are lips, that she'd dreamed of countless nights, that she never thought she'd feel in this lifetime.

And then there's a light nip, like testing the waters, and it's all the encouragement Root needs to whip them around and shove Shaw onto the desk. Every brush of a tongue, of hands reaching into jackets and under shirts, brings with it the realization, that She had Shaw's back all along. That She kept her safe. That they might really get their happy ending, the three of them.

She has Shaw's jacket off and shirt practically wrapped around her head when a buzz flickers in her ear. Root wrenches herself away from Shaw with a groan - and a muffled and clearly frustrated _what the hell?_ from Shaw herself - but she listens intently, eyes unfocusing.

Several seconds pass before the communication ceases, and Root glances down to find that Shaw's apparently decided the easiest route to fixing her shirt situation was to remove it entirely. She swallows a spike of arousal and forces her eyes up to meet Shaw's own with a sheepish grin.

"What?" Shaw growls out, hands toying with her shirt. "I thought we were done. What's She want now?"

It doesn't escape Root's notice that this is the second time Shaw's used that pronoun when referring to Her. "We have a new mission," she says. "Away from here."

Shaw rolls her eyes but shrugs her shirt back on anyway. "Seriously? Where?"

"Seattle."

(AN: Seattle is a nod to the standard setting of the cyberpunkian Shadowrun, because Root and Shaw would hella fit into that universe.)


End file.
